The Sochi Project: Documenting the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in a city with no snow

In 2007, what would become the most expensive Olympic Games in history was announced. Sochi, on the banks of the Black Sea and known as the Florida of Russia – complete with palm trees and sandy beaches – would host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

The story caught the attention of filmmaker and writer Arnold van Bruggen and photographer Rob Hornstra and over the last four years they have produced The Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucausus, as well as an extensive document online – The Sochi Project – which is published in Dutch, English and Russian. In a discussion with BBC Radio Current Affairs presenter Lucy Ash at the Frontline Club on Friday 1 November, van Bruggen and Hornstra spoke about why they were attracted to documenting the area of Sochi.